Systematic Fraud In Florida Election

The Naples News reports on a systematic effort by Florida’s Democratic Party to harvest thousands of illegal votes, using altered state government forms:

A day after Florida’s election left top state races too close to call, a Democratic party leader directed staffers and volunteers to share altered election forms with voters to fix signature problems on absentee ballots after the state’s deadline.

The altered forms surfaced in Broward, Santa Rosa, Citrus and Okaloosa counties and were reported to federal prosecutors to review for possible election fraud as Florida counties complete a required recount in three top races.

But an email obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK-Florida shows that Florida Democrats were organizing a broader statewide effort beyond those counties to give voters the altered forms to fix improper absentee ballots after the Nov. 5 deadline. Democratic party leaders provided staffers with copies of a form, known as a “cure affidavit,” that had been modified to include an inaccurate Nov. 8 deadline.

This is the relevant portion of the form. The Democrats altered the reference to submitting the cure affidavit from “the day after the election” to November 8.

These altered forms were sent to voters whose mailed-in ballots were defective because they did not include a proper signature. The Democrats attempted to, in effect, extend the legal deadline for “cure affidavits” so that more ballots potentially could be counted.

One Palm Beach Democrat said in an interview the idea was to have voters fix and submit as many absentee ballots as possible with the altered forms in hopes of later including them in vote totals if a judge ruled such ballots were allowed.
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It is not clear how many altered forms were sent across the state, but Kim’s email outlined a step-by-step process for volunteers and staffers to follow in order to get as many voters as possible to submit the altered form three days after the deadline.
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The document Kim attached to her email was an altered state form to fix an absentee ballot with signature problems. The altered form modified the original state document by replacing the deadline identified as “no later than 5 p.m. on the day before the election” with a new deadline “no later than 5 p.m. Thursday Nov. 8.”

Kim’s email instructed staff and volunteers to use the list of voters to contact about their signature problems on the absentee ballots, to complete the form on the phone with the voter and to email the completed form to the voter.

The voter was instructed to print the form and to sign it. And Kim’s email instructed the party workers to tell voters to deliver the signed form to their local election office.

Kim told staffers that voters should reply back to them after they delivered the forms at the party’s email, [email protected]

It is not clear from the Naples News story what universe of voters received the faked forms from the Democrats. Best case, they mailed them to all those whose ballots had improper signatures. In that event, they were looking for more ballots that could potentially give them an edge. If they were able to identify Democratic voters and send the altered forms only to them, the case is worse. We do know that the Democrats tried to call their party members’ attention to the opportunity to belatedly fix their ballots:

Pam Keith, a Palm Beach County Democrat, came under fire Wednesday after Republicans circulated a screenshot of a Nov. 7 deleted tweet she sent to about 22,000 of her Twitter followers, encouraging people to submit forms to fix their absentee ballots two days after the state-mandated deadline.

But in either event, it appears that mailing out the doctored forms, in order to harvest ballots where the legal deadline had passed, was likely a crime:

The Department of State, which oversees elections, raised concerns about the altered forms, arguing that making changes to state forms is a criminal offense in Florida. The forms were forwarded on Friday to federal prosecutors.
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“Making or using an altered form is a criminal offense under Florida law,” wrote Bradley McVay, the state department’s lawyer, when he referred the altered forms circulated in Broward and three other counties to federal prosecutors.